ACA Blasts Raycom’s Shared Services Agreement With Belo To Control Three Tucson Stations, Including Fox And CBS Affiliates

PITTSBURGH, November 17,
2011 - The
American Cable Association is blasting broadcasters' new Shared Services
Agreement (SSA) in Tucson, Ariz., that will allow Raycom Media to control the operations
of three local stations, including top-rated CBS and Fox stations, even though
Federal Communications Commission rules generally prohibit formal cross
ownership among the four highest-rated stations in a market.

"With
breathtaking disdain for the public interest, Raycom is seizing effective
control of Tucson's CBS and Fox affiliates just as the FCC is about to release
a notice of proposed rulemaking asking to what extent such deals violate the ban on consolidation among
the top four local stations," ACA President and CEO Matthew M. Polka said. "As
we've seen elsewhere, SSAs are strong indicators of bad news to come, including
higher retransmission consent fees; higher advertising rates; less competition,
localism and diversity; and job loss among news reporters and production
employees."

A
published report said that under the Raycom-Belo SSA, all workers except sales staff
will lose their jobs at Belo's Fox station KMSB, while Raycom's CBS affiliate
KOLD will provide news to KMSB viewers going forward. Raycom expects to complete the transition
within the next 120 days, with reports saying the SSA could threaten up to 20
news jobs in front of and behind the camera. (Click
here to see video of KMSB anchor describing planned job cuts.) According to
The Nielsen Co., Tucson is the 70th largest TV market with 442,000
TV households.

For
years, ACA has highlighted how the long-broken retransmission consent regime has
been made even worse by the proliferation of coordinated retransmission consent
negotiations by separately owned broadcasters in the same market using legally binding
arrangements, such as SSAs, and also through informal arrangements.

On
Monday, ACA joined a letter to FCC Chairman Genachowski showing how local
television stations that cannot lawfully merge under agency rules are
nonetheless consolidating their core operations, staff and news production. The
letter -- co-signed by Free Press, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and two
newspaper and broadcast employee unions - noted that two stations affiliated
with the Big Four networks that negotiate together have the market power to increase
their pay-TV carriage fees by 21.6%, compared to situations where Big Four
stations negotiate carriage separately.

"To
protect consumers, the FCC should conclude that separately owned stations in
the same market that coordinate their retransmission consent negotiations are
not bargaining in good faith as required by law, and are violating the existing
broadcast ownership limits. ACA has documented that coordinated bargaining is a
prevalent practice and that at least 36 pairs of separately owned Big 4
affiliated stations in 33 different markets have engaged in coordinated
negotiations through use of a single bargaining representative," Polka said.

About the American Cable Association

Based in Pittsburgh, the
American Cable Association is a trade organization representing nearly 900
smaller and medium-sized, independent cable companies who provide broadband
services for more than 7.6 million cable subscribers primarily located in rural
and smaller suburban markets across America. Through active participation
in the regulatory and legislative process in Washington, D.C., ACA's members
work together to advance the interests of their customers and ensure the future
competitiveness and viability of their business. For more information,
visit http://www.americancable.org/

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